Tag Archives: c difficile

Probiotics Antibiotics: Good and Bad?

Morgan Chilson in a recent article on newsmax.com, says that one in three people who take antibiotics get diarrhea. The good news! Research has found that probiotics help reduce the risk of suffering from that particular unpleasant side effect.

She goes on to say that one of the most well-researched aspects of probiotics is the effect it has on the gut, and specifically diarrhea symptoms. In 2012 there were numerous studies on antibiotics and probiotics, and researchers determined that people who took probiotics at the same time they took antibiotics were 42% less likely to have diarrhea as a side effect, says WebMD.

WebMD says that by affecting good bacteria, as well as bad, antibiotics can disrupt the delicate microbial balance in the intestines, but the live microorganisms marketed as probiotics can help restore this balance to reduce diarrhea risk.

Gastrointestinal disease researcher Eamonn Quigley, MD, of Ireland’s University College Cork told WebMD that there is a lot of good news because there is a lot of extremely high-quality research going on now.

“Up until now, most of the noise about probiotics has been generated by marketing, but it may soon be generated by the science.”

U.S. News & World Report points out that antibiotic associated diarrhea can even allow a disease-causing strain of bacteria, Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, to proliferate in the gut.

C.diff infections can be very dangerous to some people, particularly people with immune problems. The reports says “some experts hypothesize that even in cases where antibiotics do not cause noticeable GI symptoms, the ecological changes they precipitate in the gut can have adverse effects on longer-term health.”

World Report writer, Tamera Duker Freuman, says that certain probiotic strains have been shown to be more effective in treating antibiotic-associated diarrhea, mainly Saccharomyces boulardiiand Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. She says to keep in mind that eating more yogurt or other foods that contain probiotics don’t make the dosage high enough to help fight off AAD.

Dr Joel Fuhrman M.D. interview by Dr Oz was rerun on TV recently. He, too, has great concern about the negative, long term effects of using antibiotics.

Dr. Fuhrman is the Research Director of the Nutritional Research Foundationand a member of the Dr. Oz Show Medical Advisory Board. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (1988) and has he has also received the St. Joseph’s Family Practice Resident’s Teaching Award becasue of his contribution to making sure their residents are educated.

He takes a very serious preventive medicine approach. He has come up with an acronym, “G-BOMBS”,that you can use to remember the most nutrient-dense, health-promoting foods. He suggests that you ought to eat these every day, and that they ought to make up a large proportion of your diet. He says that these foods are extremely effective at preventing chronic disease and promoting health and longevity.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most serious health threats today. Infections from resistant bacteria are getting more and more common. Some pathogens have even become resistant to multiple types or classes of antibiotics that are used to treat bacterial infections.

The loss of effective antibiotics makes it very difficult to fight infectious diseases and manage the possible complications in infectious which is common in vulnerable patients who may be undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, dialysis for renal failure, and surgery.

Antibiotics do not fight infections caused by viruses like colds, flu, most sore throats, bronchitis, and many sinus and ear infections. Instead, symptom relief might be the best treatment option for viral infections.

Bottom Line …… use antibiotics when antibiotics are needed, that is to fight bacterial infections when absolutely necessary.

When you use antibiotics appropriately, you do the best to encourage your body to heal. However, taking antibiotics for viral infections, like colds and flu, including most sore throats, bronchitis, and also a variey of ear infections will not help get rid of the infection.

Probiotics Antibiotics Good or Bad was last modified: January 21st, 2016 by Dr. Pamela Nathan DHM

Russell Jaffe MD, Ph D, CCN, Fellow of Health Studies Collegium, was the first presenter today. He had lots and lots of valuable information to share with us. He focused on the importance of what he referred to as ‘qualified predictive biomarkers’ that help us to understand each person’s condition and what needs to be considered when advising treatment.

These are the ‘qualified predictive biomarkers’ that he recommends. The tests are freely available and any physician can order them. If you’re interested in doing so, just make a note of them and take the list to your favorite physician for the tests to be run and interpreted for you:

Hgb A1c evaluation, This parameter reinforces life style choice as being very important and not only genetics.

homocysteine is used to evaluate sulphur cycles. He stressed the importance of having enough sulphur foods in your diet , like garlic, ginger, onion, broccoli sprouts, and eggs.

LRA by ELISA/ACT tolerance and hypersenstivity test.He says by getting the results from these tested, collectively, you can have a very good idea of how ‘healthy’ a person is, and can anticipate whether they have a chance of living for another 10 or 20 years.

I loved the quote that Stig Bengmark from Sweden included in his presentation: “We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.” He reinforced my belief that underlying persistent inflammation is the mother of all disease. He explained how stressors can turn genes on and off, modify histones and even seem to affect what gets passed down to our offspring.

He sees a relationship between malfunctioning microbiota and dysbiosis where the two go hand in hand. When microbiota are stable they reduce general inflammation and maintain immune homeostasis. When they’re not stable, that’s when we start getting problems. He also said that processed foods can be responsible for encouraging dysbiosis, leaky gut and a malfunctioning immune response.

He spoke about the importance of eating magnesium rich foods, tumeric, and fermented foods. He loves avocados and made the comment that he would suggest mothers feed their infants avocados rather than formula!

Charalabos Pothoulakis MD from the Division of Digestive Disease at UCLA gave an in depth talk on what we know currently about saccharomyces boulardii and c difficile, the leading cause of healthcare-infectious diarrhea in the US. He has been involved in studies on saccharomyces boulardii and they have shown how helpful this friendly strain of yeast has been in the prevention and treatment of diarrhea that has been caused by antibiotics and also c difficile. Another study he spoke about was conducted on Crohn’s patients. They found that S. boulardii added to baseline therapy reduced leaky gut and improved intestinal permeability in these patients. (Gracia Vilela et al 2008,43(7):842-8)

Michael Cabana MD from UCSF told us about the use of probiotics with pediatric allergies and asthma patients. He wasn’t able to site any conclusive evidence as some studies showed positive outcomes while others didn’t – it may have to do with patient compliance, he said, and will need to be studied further. He did say that they have found the probiotic, l. reuteri to be used effectively for colic.

There were questions from the audience with regard to FMT – Fecal Microbial Transplants. Dr Cabana told us that presently the procedure was conducted in Seattle, Washington and Canada. He was hopeful that it would be used more extensively in the future, in the US, as there was a CPT code assigned to the procedure!

Probiotics Symposium Day 2 – San Antonio TX was last modified: January 8th, 2014 by Dr. Pamela Nathan DHM